Before I learned that the supposed study linking vaccines to autism has been thoroughly debunked, reports about it caused my wife and I to think and talk seriously about the subject of vaccinations for our infant.
The thing that concerned us most was the idea that giving infants multiple vaccines at the same time might lead to complications never previously admitted by the medical industry.
I don’t have a lot of faith in the Food and Drug Administration because too many of its managers have come from the industries they are supposed to regulate, particularly the pharmaceutical companies, in whom I have even less faith.
The study that caused all the concern in the first place appeared in the British medical journal Lancet in 1998. In it, Dr. Andrew Wakefield claimed a link between the vaccine for mumps, measles and rubella and children who developed autism immediately after receiving the vaccines.
The idea that our son might develop autism as a result of receiving the vaccine was scary enough that we both had to give the matter careful thought before submitting our son to the tender mercies of his pediatrician. To be honest, the discussion didn’t last that long. While it is true that the rate of occurrence of autism has risen dramatically, I believe those who say a big part of the increase is due to improvements on the part of the medical establishment in diagnosing the condition. I don’t believe that accounts for all of the increase, though, which is why we took some time to consider Wakefield’s ideas.
We quickly came to the conclusion that the risk of contracting mumps, measles and rubella was far, far greater than the risk of contracting autism from the vaccine. My wife and I both held our son to comfort him and keep him still when he received the injections, and we were amazed as the nurse punctured his skin once, then twice, without so much as a whimper. A tear appeared when he was jabbed for the third time, and the fourth shot broke the floodgates. But the tears dried quickly, and as our son nears his fourth birthday, thankfully he has shown no signs of mumps, measles, rubella or autism.
And now it turns out our concerns may have been a waste of worry because Dr. Wakefield falsified the data in his study. An eight year investigation of the original study in Lancet showed Wakefield altered or misreported data in every case. Editors of the journal described the Wakefield study as “an elaborate fraud.”
Journalist Brian Deer exposed the fraud with an expose published in the Sunday Times of London.
He said British authorities discovered that of the 12 children Wakefield claimed developed autism immediately after receiving the vaccination, three were never diagnosed with autism and five others had shown signs of developmental disorders prior to receiving vaccinations. The records also showed that in many of the cases where autism was diagnosed, the symptoms appears months after vaccination, not hours or days as Wakefield had claimed.
Also, it wasn’t a blind study, as is normally the case for a genuine scientific study. Instead, he recruited subjects whose parents were convinced vaccine had damaged their children.
Topping it off was the revelation in 2003 that Wakefield had received payment from a personal injury attorney that wanted to extract damages from the vaccine makers. That revelation led 10 of his 13 co-authors to withdraw their endorsement of the study and for The Lancet to retract its publication.
Wakefield has since been stripped of his medical license and has been harshly condemned by other doctors from causing the deaths of the mumps, measles and rubella victims who have died as a result of the anti-vaccination movement that has used his work to convince people that vaccines are dangerous.
The direct result of this and other irresponsible misinformation on vaccinations has been a resurgence of dangerous diseases that were once on the brink of eradication. Now, this discredited individual has since been welcomed by anti-vaccination activists in the United States and has gone on the road, selling his particular variety of fear in books and seminars.
Wakefield’s saga will probably end in a court of law, with him on trial in connection with the death of a victim of his advice, the child of parents he counseled to forego vaccinations that would have saved the child’s life.
Don’t let that child be yours.
I don’t pretend to have the medical expertise necessary to dispense advice on medical matters, but I believe the fraud underlying Wakefield’s study destroys its credibility. The overwhelming majority of doctors and pediatricians believe the question of whether to vaccinate or not was settled decades ago, to the benefit of all. To that large majority, there is no question to consider.
As I said before, I’m not asking anyone to take my word for anything. My advice to other parents who stop to consider the matter is to consult with your own pediatrician. Maybe see what the American Academy of Pediatrics has to say.
The thing that concerned us most was the idea that giving infants multiple vaccines at the same time might lead to complications never previously admitted by the medical industry.
I don’t have a lot of faith in the Food and Drug Administration because too many of its managers have come from the industries they are supposed to regulate, particularly the pharmaceutical companies, in whom I have even less faith. The study that caused all the concern in the first place appeared in the British medical journal Lancet in 1998. In it, Dr. Andrew Wakefield claimed a link between the vaccine for mumps, measles and rubella and children who developed autism immediately after receiving the vaccines.
The idea that our son might develop autism as a result of receiving the vaccine was scary enough that we both had to give the matter careful thought before submitting our son to the tender mercies of his pediatrician. To be honest, the discussion didn’t last that long. While it is true that the rate of occurrence of autism has risen dramatically, I believe those who say a big part of the increase is due to improvements on the part of the medical establishment in diagnosing the condition. I don’t believe that accounts for all of the increase, though, which is why we took some time to consider Wakefield’s ideas.
We quickly came to the conclusion that the risk of contracting mumps, measles and rubella was far, far greater than the risk of contracting autism from the vaccine. My wife and I both held our son to comfort him and keep him still when he received the injections, and we were amazed as the nurse punctured his skin once, then twice, without so much as a whimper. A tear appeared when he was jabbed for the third time, and the fourth shot broke the floodgates. But the tears dried quickly, and as our son nears his fourth birthday, thankfully he has shown no signs of mumps, measles, rubella or autism.
And now it turns out our concerns may have been a waste of worry because Dr. Wakefield falsified the data in his study. An eight year investigation of the original study in Lancet showed Wakefield altered or misreported data in every case. Editors of the journal described the Wakefield study as “an elaborate fraud.”
Journalist Brian Deer exposed the fraud with an expose published in the Sunday Times of London.
He said British authorities discovered that of the 12 children Wakefield claimed developed autism immediately after receiving the vaccination, three were never diagnosed with autism and five others had shown signs of developmental disorders prior to receiving vaccinations. The records also showed that in many of the cases where autism was diagnosed, the symptoms appears months after vaccination, not hours or days as Wakefield had claimed.
Also, it wasn’t a blind study, as is normally the case for a genuine scientific study. Instead, he recruited subjects whose parents were convinced vaccine had damaged their children.
Topping it off was the revelation in 2003 that Wakefield had received payment from a personal injury attorney that wanted to extract damages from the vaccine makers. That revelation led 10 of his 13 co-authors to withdraw their endorsement of the study and for The Lancet to retract its publication.
Wakefield has since been stripped of his medical license and has been harshly condemned by other doctors from causing the deaths of the mumps, measles and rubella victims who have died as a result of the anti-vaccination movement that has used his work to convince people that vaccines are dangerous.
The direct result of this and other irresponsible misinformation on vaccinations has been a resurgence of dangerous diseases that were once on the brink of eradication. Now, this discredited individual has since been welcomed by anti-vaccination activists in the United States and has gone on the road, selling his particular variety of fear in books and seminars.
Wakefield’s saga will probably end in a court of law, with him on trial in connection with the death of a victim of his advice, the child of parents he counseled to forego vaccinations that would have saved the child’s life.
Don’t let that child be yours.
I don’t pretend to have the medical expertise necessary to dispense advice on medical matters, but I believe the fraud underlying Wakefield’s study destroys its credibility. The overwhelming majority of doctors and pediatricians believe the question of whether to vaccinate or not was settled decades ago, to the benefit of all. To that large majority, there is no question to consider.
As I said before, I’m not asking anyone to take my word for anything. My advice to other parents who stop to consider the matter is to consult with your own pediatrician. Maybe see what the American Academy of Pediatrics has to say.
As you said, the study concerning vaccines and autism was fraudulent. But that doesn't mean everything's okay.
ReplyDeleteIncreasingly, it's become apparent that medical studies are, for some reason, becoming impossibly to replicate, and are therefore unreliable.
Also, medical studies are hopelessly corrupt on several levels, from the "hired guns" who sign their names to ghostwritten medical-journal articles, to the fact that pharmaceutical companies fund most of the studies, causing researchers to throw out data and conclusions that fail to serve corporate purposes.
For every Dr. Wakefield who falsifies a study which condemns a drug therapy, a hundred doctors are participating in business-as-usual frauds which promote drug therapies. Unlike Dr. Wakefield, those researchers will never be caught.
The result: we are subjected to drugs, including vaccines, which are mostly ineffective, and often dangerous.
At BEST, vaccines are ONLY better than the diseases they're designed to prevent, assuming they're successful in doing so, which often is not the case. Vaccines are not good for us except for their debatable value in preventing disease. Vaccinations cannot currently be held responsible for autism, but surely vaccines are harmful in other ways.
Many childhood conditions can be caused or aggravated by vaccinations, but often
parents -- and certainly doctors -- fail to connect the dots. Any time ANYONE of ANY age starts a new drug of any kind, ALL negative conditions which emerge should be noted carefully, because most of the time the problems are caused by the drugs.